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Pharmacy teams must accept paper, digital and plastic proof of prescription exemption, while plastic cards are phased out over five years, PSNC has said.

The NHS Business Standards Authority (BSA) began the process of phasing out plastic exemption cards for prescription prepayment certificates and maternity exemption certificates in favour of digital or paper certificates last month.

However, the Pharmaceutical Services Negotiating Committee (PSNC) said it is expected to take up to five years for the plastic cards to be fully phased out.

During this time, pharmacy teams should accept plastic, paper or digital exemptions, as long as they are within their expiry date, PSNC advised last week (March 5).

“Where patients do not have evidence or where there is doubt over whether the evidence provided is appropriate, mark the ‘evidence not seen’ box on the reverse of the prescription,” PSNC said.

“Pharmacy staff need not refuse to dispense items on the basis that the patient does not provide evidence of their entitlement to free prescriptions,” it stressed.

Real-time exemption checking

PSNC stressed at the time that government plans for pharmacists to conduct “real-time exemption checking” should be seen as a “positive development”.

PSNC drug tariff and reimbursement manager Suraj Shah told C+D last week: “While the requirement to check proof of exemption from the NHS prescription charge will remain largely the same, in future we hope that the full rollout of real-time exemption checking will provide a more efficient exemption checking process for pharmacy staff.”

Richard MacLeavy, Non Pharmacist Branch Manager

Posted on Fri, 15/03/2019 - 22:07

Isn't it time to scrap the whole paid and exemptions business? It seems disproportinate to charge one person £9 per item (from April) and another person nothing. Especially as many of the exemptions arn't even means tested. I've had wealthy patients who order extra medication for their winters spent in spain but are over 60 so pay nothing and alternatively one patient who works every hour under the sun but being the only wage earner in his house struggles to pay the prescription charge, so much so that we keep a record which he clears each pay day. Also both current price points are wrong in my opinion. £9 is too high and prohibitive, yet having prescriptions for free leads to preople failing to appreciate the service offered, and increases over-ordering and medicines waste. They should scrap the whole thing and replace it with a £1 an item charge retained by the pharmacy. That way pharmacy would get a meaningful increase in funding at no extra cost to the NHS and the NHS would benefit from a reduction in medicines waste and its associated costs.

Leon The Apothecary, Student

Posted on Thu, 14/03/2019 - 20:12

Why do I care if patients choose the wrong exemption? That's called having responsibility. I feel the same way about ordering the next month's medication, but at least there's a reason we do that. As it's very aptly put. #NotMyJob

A Hussain, Senior Management

N O, Pharmaceutical Adviser

Posted on Thu, 14/03/2019 - 15:11

‘evidence not seen’ box on the reverse of the prescription,”

If we tick this box for all patients who are not 16 or under and 60 and over, then why we need to actually see any evidence. It is the headache of for the persona collecting/ signing the reverse side to fight with the fraud detection team. Why should we lose our sleep over this issue??